Protect your ID

With the increasing prominence of online transactions and data management systems, identity theft has become an everyday concern for the common citizen. By hacking into bank account databases or soliciting personal information through cleverly designed schemes, prospective identity thieves now have more techniques at their disposal than ever before.

An insidious new form of ID theft is the fake check, which involves a scam artist answering a classified ad and offering to pay for the advertised item with a personal check, cashier’s check, or corporate check.

Before the check is sent, however, the scammer devises a way to “accidentally” write the check for more than the item’s price. They then request that the recipient deposit this check and then wire them back an amount equal to the difference between the “erroneous” check and the advertised item price. Unbeknownst to the victim, they have deposited a check from an intentionally under funded account, which then bounces. The victim is then liable for the full amount of the fraudulent check.

Besides the fake check scheme, many other methods are used by ID thieves. These include “dumpster diving” for account numbers in garbage, phishing, changing the victim’s address, and stealing their wallets or financial statements. They can then use this information to gain access to existing accounts or create new ones, rent items, or claim government transfer payments in the victim’s name. Due to the multitude of schemes employed by such criminals, it is essential that you safeguard your account numbers and Personal Identification Numbers (PINs).

If you suspect that your identity has been stolen or is about to be stolen (e.g. your wallet has been stolen), you can freeze your credit report to prevent unconfirmed access, close accounts you suspect to be affected, or file a fraud alert.

This can be negotiated by contacting one of the credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion) and posting either an initial alert, which will remain valid for at least 90 days, or an extended alert, remaining on your report for seven years.

You may also want to file a police report on the incident and the suspected perpetrator. Unfortunately, some police departments remain hesitant to file such reports. In such cases, filing an ID theft report with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will help them identify threats and catch the perpetrators. You may also want to contact other police departments for assistance.

Although we have discussed several methods of recovering from identity theft, the most effective method is to remain vigilant to potential theft schemes and avoid them in the first place. Remember that while identity theft may seem ubiquitous in today’s electronic society, there are ways to safeguard oneself.

Written by Elizabethtown College Students In Free Enterprise, a nonprofit organization that teaches others the principles of free market economics. Students, faculty and staff are strongly encouraged to visit the SIFE blog at http://etownsife.blogspot.com/. Contact sife@etown.edu with any questions.

This article was originally published in the Etownian on Thursday, January 31st.

Company Business Ethics

It is important to be able to judge yourself on your own personal ethics in order to use them in a business setting. Once you have defined yourself in terms of ethical business behavior, then you should locate businesses in which to work so that you can minimize the possibility of compromising your ethics.

Individuals – not corporations – make ethical decisions. When comparing companies, the ethical environment should be assessed. This can be done by researching its code of ethics, ethics programs or interviewing future coworkers and managers. Do not treat the company as an individual when determining ethical behavior, instead understand the individual employees.

Remember though that the personal business ethics that you bring to the ethical environment of the business means more than the ethics already placed in the company. Think about how your career activities in the company will require certain business ethical decisions. How much dilemma risk can you handle when working for a company? A business whose ethical standards align most with your standards will tend to decrease the number of dilemmas. You must assess your own code of ethics before assessing that of a company’s.

There are six basic guidelines that you can use in determining your actions and a potential company’s environment: laws, rules & procedures, values, conscience, promises and heroes.

Initially, always look at the legality of an issue in which you are about to make a decision. Sometimes, the easiest way to determine your action is to do what is legal. However, sometimes actions can still be considered legal and unethical to a person. It is necessary to look at all sides of the issue to make a well-informed decision.

When comparing your business ethical code and a company’s, look at how your planned action in situations is compared to what is already stated in the company's policies and procedures.

Take a look at the concept of laws again. Even if an action is thought to be legal, is the legality superficial? Does the action follow the spirit of the law as well as its word? Here, loopholes might affect a situation; an action that becomes legal because of a loophole might not have actual legal value.

When thinking about business ethics, it is important to use your conscience and your inherent ability to distinguish what’s right from wrong. Use this concept when comparing companies as well.

Research what the companies have promised in the past and see if they have fulfilled their promises. A company that has a poor reputation for making its promises might not have a strong ethical environment.

Since you cannot really judge the company as a whole when comparing business ethics, you can always research the ethical behavior of its figurehead, CEO or president, in order to see how that company’s potential hero applies his or her ethical behavior. The rest of the company could potentially align itself with the ethical conduct of its leader.

Resources for this article were adapted from http://ethics.georgesmay.com.

This article was originally published in the Etownian on Thursday, October 18th, 2007.

Why are business ethics so important in today’s society?

In the past ten years, corporate scandals have become too widespread in our society. We hear about them all the time, Enron, Rite-Aid, AOL-Time Warner, the list is endless. But what few people understand is that when these companies act in such an unethical manner, it hurts more then just their employees and direct customers. When companies like Peregrine Systems, which is traded on the NASDAQ, overstates their sales by more then $100 million, the consequences go beyond the company itself. The share’s of stock lose their value, and the company in turn needs to cut costs. Where do they start? With their employees. These people lose not only their jobs, but also their benefits; in addition, they will try to collect unemployment. As the government is getting charged with giving out aid, they have two options: cut spending in other places or increase taxes.

In the case of Enron, they hid their debts, manipulated the Texas power market and Californian energy market, and bribed foreign officials. Not only is the latter illegal under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, it is unethical to use bribes to get business. Another problem with acting unethically is getting other businesses you work with caught in illegal or unethical activity too. In this case, Arthur Anderson had shred all of Enron’s documents. This cost them not only money in legal fees and penalty charges, but also in lost revenue. After this was brought to the media, they lose hundreds of clients because of their damaged reputation.

Unethical behavior doesn’t always have to do with finances, those are just the cases we hear about. Companies engage in behavior that is not socially responsible all the time. This includes piracy, counterfeiting, and more commonly, damaging the environment. As consumer’s are becoming more aware of these activities, it is imperative that companies begin to act more ethically or they are at risk lose customers and profits.

This article was originally published in the Etownian, on Thursday, October 4th, 2007.